How this for a twist on using social media? A Kentucky high school soccer player says he will come out as gay at his graduation if he gets 10,000 retweets by Thursday at 6 p.m.
The player is using the Twitter account of Michael Martin, an openly gay high school soccer player from West Virginia, to get the retweets:
If I get 10K RT’s, my closeted soccer friend will come out at his high school graduation during his speech! Retweet! pic.twitter.com/X2LNEWP7Jy
— Michael Martin (@martinofcompany) June 3, 2015 I spoke with Michael and he said the request was legitimate. He verified that this player is who he says he is (Michael has video-Skyped with him several times and connects with him via social media). He said this player has indicated he wants to come out and was looking for a unique hook. I'm not convinced he's ready. Michael wanted him to do it for 1,000 retweets and he countered with 5,000 and then 10,000.
There is one big problem — there is no way this will get 10,000 retweets (as I write this he is 9,920 short with 40 hours to go). I checked President Obama's Twitter feed and he almost never gets that many. Even Caitlyn Jenner's most recent tweet — there is no one hotter on Twitter right now — has "only" 7,600 retweets in 11 hours as I write this. Only megastars with established Twitter followings like Justin Bieber and Beyonce routinely break the five-figure mark in retweets. Either this player really doesn't want to come out yet or he greatly overestimates how many retweets the average account gets.
Even if the 10,000 retweets are reached, I won't hold the player to coming out at his graduation. He needs to do it when he is really ready, not based on some artificial social media gimmick. Whatever happens, I wish him luck and hope we can add him to the list of out athletes at some point, regardless of how many rewteets he gets.
